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Phoronix Feedback Thread 2007-07

07-26-2007, 04:46 PM

Shortly at Phoronix we will be announcing some major expansions -- into other forms of media, a lot more content, some site improvements, and other features we aren't yet disclosing. However, before we make these announcements we would like some feedback from our readers on what you would like to see most and what you think needs to be improved? Is there some page on Phoronix.com that could be better organized? Would you like a new homepage? Would you like a subscription-based ad-free Phoronix?? Are there any missing features? Would you like better integration between the Phoronix Forums and Phoronix, so you could comment directly on news/articles?

We would really like a lot of feedback as we work on announcing some expansions that will hopefully turn out to be terrific and you guys should enjoy. Any feedback is much appreciated, thanks!

Comment

i don't like that a new window of firefox/iceweasel opens when i'm entering the forum. could you please do that in a tab? (i've tried the option in the menu without success)

That's all up to the browser settings whether a target of _blank opens up in a new tab or window. It's working fine here in Firefox and on multiple machines in the past. Did you check all of your preferences?

Comment

Onething about site design I don't really like, is how the fora and the news are so detached. Everytime there is this mention of discuss this there, that there, go there.

Just some uniform links below the news articles pointing to the right thread, and indication of how many posts?, perhaps even (although this is risky) some comments directy integrated in the main site, without al this vbullitin stuffy.

Comment

Onething about site design I don't really like, is how the fora and the news are so detached. Everytime there is this mention of discuss this there, that there, go there.

Just some uniform links below the news articles pointing to the right thread, and indication of how many posts?, perhaps even (although this is risky) some comments directy integrated in the main site, without al this vbullitin stuffy.

Comment

As much as I enjoy reading Phoronix (especially ATI-related issues), I have a hard time doing so because of the format used by the website. I usually save articles for reading offline, as my online time is extremely limited. However, Phoronix articles are split into many pages, and I cannot easily save them for offline reading. There is no Print option either, which I usually use on sites that split articles (like HowStuffWorks.com). If you can add a Print option, or another way of getting all the content on a single page, then I'd appreciate it.

Note that I understand that Phoronix is advertising-sponsored. I do make sure to visit the advertisers that interest me when I visit the site in my online time.

Thanks in advance.

Dotan

A print version or single-page archival format is one area we are actively exploring. As you can imagine, it's quite costly to operate Phoronix and we rely largely upon the advertisers. We are exploring the possibility of having a "premium service" where (for a nominal yearly fee) you can view the pages with no advertisements, view the articles as a single page, or perhaps download the article as a PDF. An alternative possibility may be that after an article is two or three weeks old, you would be able to view the article on a single page. We are attempting to find the most appropriate solution to address this issue and would appreciate and welcome any other feedback on this matter.

Comment

Onething about site design I don't really like, is how the fora and the news are so detached. Everytime there is this mention of discuss this there, that there, go there.

Just some uniform links below the news articles pointing to the right thread, and indication of how many posts?, perhaps even (although this is risky) some comments directy integrated in the main site, without al this vbullitin stuffy.

That's really the only grief i have.

The first step in this integration between PHXCMS (our content management system) and vBulletin (forums) is now present.

When going to a news item (i.e. http://www.phoronix.com/?page=news_item&px=NTkzNA) and clicking on "Comments? Discuss In Our Forums", you will be redirected to the specific discussion thread for the news item instead of just the sub-forum of the discussion.

Comment

* I subscribe to LWN.net and read it every day, so anything that LWN already covers (such as news announcements about Linux software) are not interesting to me to see on phoronix. What can phoronix do that LWN doesn't already do? Hardware measurements and reviews and Solaris come to mind.

* I hate the look and feel of the forums. I find the colors and design to be ugly and hard to read and I find the functionality to be nearly unusable. I expect that I'll continue my current habit of not even looking at the forums. For starters, I don't like dark background with light text. Many studies have shown that on modern LCD displays, dark background and light foreground makes people read slower, make more mistakes, and perhaps also experience more eyestrain, compared to light background and dark text. For seconders, I don't like the functionality of "forums", with their topic-lists and so on. I much prefer flat or threaded discussions of the kind you find on slashdot, lwn.net, and blogs. I also can't stand the emoticons.

I think part of this is a generation gap issue. I'm of the generation that learned on-line discussion with Usenet and e-mail mailing lists. (The latter remains my favorite form of on-line discussion.) phoronix looks like it comes from the younger generation who learned on-line discussion with IM, social web sites, and games.

* I subscribe to LWN.net and read it every day, so anything that LWN already covers (such as news announcements about Linux software) are not interesting to me to see on phoronix. What can phoronix do that LWN doesn't already do? Hardware measurements and reviews and Solaris come to mind.

At Phoronix what we do are hardware benchmarks, reviews, Solaris information, etc. LWN really doesn't do anything that we do and vice versa. In the Phoronix News area there may be some similar stories of like an Ubuntu announcement or the release of some new major open-source package, but as you can see our news is more Linux hardware focused and we generally only cover unique or interesting software-related stories. We stay out of all the discussions on legal debates, GPLv3 ramblings, kernel drama, etc.

We really don't have much in common with LWN or any other site on the net as our primary focus is on Linux and Solaris hardware.

* I hate the look and feel of the forums. I find the colors and design to be ugly and hard to read and I find the functionality to be nearly unusable. I expect that I'll continue my current habit of not even looking at the forums. For starters, I don't like dark background with light text. Many studies have shown that on modern LCD displays, dark background and light foreground makes people read slower, make more mistakes, and perhaps also experience more eyestrain, compared to light background and dark text. For seconders, I don't like the functionality of "forums", with their topic-lists and so on. I much prefer flat or threaded discussions of the kind you find on slashdot, lwn.net, and blogs. I also can't stand the emoticons.

Currently our forums are powered by vBulletin and there have been only a small number of complaints about the color scheme on the forums. The forum color scheme isn't exactly in sync with Phoronix.com but from time to time we certainly make alterations and other tweaks to the forums. We've been using a dark background with light text since our previous Phoronix.com layout was similar, but in the future we may change it to white-on-black to reflect the latest layout of PHXCMS-6.